


This Will All Have to Come Undone

by whyyesitscar



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-01
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-26 03:06:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whyyesitscar/pseuds/whyyesitscar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quinn has spent senior year asking herself questions, searching for something that seems impossible to find. After prom, she realizes that maybe Rachel has the answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Canon up to "Prom-asaurus," except Quinn never got hit by the truck.

It’s a month before prom that Quinn starts feeling it. Every day is a rush. She wakes up and from then on, every class, every song, every conversation is a memory before it even happens. It’s the same feeling she gets when she’s having a really good time in class and then she looks at the clock and there are only two minutes left. It’s that, only she feels it all the time. It’s this overwhelming feeling of not enough. Quinn finds herself searching every day for a something-more, a something-bigger, something-better. She isn’t sure if she could pinpoint exactly when she started feeling this way—certainly, it had started creeping around Sectionals, boiling under her nails, bubbling just under her scalp. By the time Rachel and Finn postponed their wedding, it was full-blown thunder. Thunder, sizzling oil, the whole-body itch that she couldn’t even pinpoint, much less scratch.

So she applies herself in different areas hoping that maybe one of them will lead her to an answer. She throws herself at Sam, apologizes to Shelby, tells Rachel not to marry Finn, and somehow, in the midst of all that, she gets into Yale. And it’s still not what she’s looking for, so she rejoins the God Squad and lets Joe pursue her. She wonders if maybe what she’s looking for is the religion that got fuzzy after Beth. Quinn has never been the type of Christian to call people sinners and beseech them to repent, lest they sign away their precious souls. Sure, she was more conservative earlier in high school, but that’s because it was easy. It was easy and familiar, a black-and-white set of morals and guidelines.

It was what Quinn needed when she was thirteen and a mystery even to herself. See, Quinn spent all of her adolescent life being the black. She was the wrong daughter, the not-pretty-enough, too-smart, too-quiet one. Lucy Fabray was not like her father. Lucy Fabray though that her parents were wrong a lot; she didn’t see what the problem was with gay marriage or immigrants or a black president. She read books about wizards and dragons, futures with robots, extramarital affairs and out-of-wedlock children. Lucy Fabray didn’t really see the point in limits.

But Lucy Fabray got tired of being a disappointment. She got tired of being fat and shy and nameless to everyone except teachers. So she became Quinn. Quinn was the opposite of Lucy. She was white with rules and standards, limits and rigid morals. Quinn was the kind of girl who spent time with her dad and listened to everything he said. She read the Bible and tried not to cringe at its harsh tenets. She read it so much that it became a comfort because it was a rulebook for Quinn. She was right there, outlined in all of its pages, and if Lucy ever seeped through, all Quinn had to do was open up and start reading again.

And it wasn’t all fake. She did like the idea of God, even when she was Lucy. It was a nice, reassuring thought that maybe someone out there was invested in her. Maybe he didn’t watch every person on Earth with a critical eye, but he knew about them. Quinn imagined that God was kind of like the popular kid that everyone likes because he likes everyone. Lucy used to help this one girl with her homework, and they weren’t friends at all, but sometimes she’d smile at Lucy and then people didn’t pick on her that day. That’s how Quinn liked to imagine God, as someone who pops in people’s lives at the right times. The little right times, though—the times when you needed just a little bit of extra happiness to make it a good day.

Quinn kind of figured that since she hadn’t had many little right times since her big wrong time (her dad would say that meant Beth, but Quinn saw it as everything after), God had kind of passed her over. And Quinn started to unravel. So maybe it was religion she was missing, and maybe Joe was the guy to stitch her back up.

But that wasn’t it either, and when he asked her to prom she politely declined. She told everyone she was going stag because independence was kind of her new thing, but she ended up renting a limo with Brittany and Santana.

There’s a difference between independent and alone. Quinn still hasn’t found it.

* * *

 

When she sees Finn and Rachel dancing, that’s when it hits full force.

Rachel and Finn are everything Quinn thought she and Finn would be by this time. They’re prom king and queen; they’re engaged; they’ve got futures. Sure, Finn won’t get into acting school like he wants to, but it’s always been Rachel’s dreams carrying them anyway. And it always used to bother her until she realized that that works for them. Quinn isn’t being a jerk when she says this, but Finn is a simple guy. He likes to feel useful and the easiest way for him to do that is to be supportive. So he latches onto Rachel’s dreams and just puts all of him into it and somewhere along the way, his own get lost. He did the same thing when Quinn was pregnant, and even though she hated it most of the time because it meant that she didn’t get a chance to feel lost, she also cried at night because she knew she didn’t deserve his kindness. She’s gotten over it since then and realized that, if you find the right kind person, kindness isn’t something you have to deserve. They just give it to you anyway. But Finn isn’t that person, so it’s at least understandable that she was confused.

Rachel is that person, and it makes Quinn furious. It makes her furious because Rachel Berry is a flawed human being. When she is narcissistic, she is far more self-involved than Quinn ever was. She is stubborn and infuriatingly driven and frustratingly naïve. Sometimes Quinn just wants to sit her down and pop all of her dream-balloons—let the air out slowly so that Rachel has time to understand that life isn’t as easy as chasing a college recruiter after a botched audition or saying yes to the world’s most average good guy. Life isn’t as easy as wanting something. If it were, no one would ever be happy. That’s the thing that Rachel doesn’t know: we’re shit at wanting things. We always want the wrong thing first. Quinn is living proof that trying to turn those misguided wants into needs really screws things up. If the mere acting of desiring could turn fantasies into realities, celebrities would become polygamists and the world’s population would decrease by about ten percent.

(Sometimes fantasies aren’t nice and they only last for a second, but that would be enough).

There is a lot about Rachel that Quinn wants to change, but she won’t ever do it. Mostly she’s mad at Rachel for being so kind and wholesome because she’s the kind of person that Quinn never was, even when she was pretending to be. Anger is a circle, Quinn thinks. You don’t go from happy to irritated to angry and then just stop. Eventually you have to go back, and Rachel lives in that blurred area in Quinn’s mind between resentment and delight.

She watches Rachel and Finn dance and she finds herself feeling jealous of Finn. He doesn’t know how lucky he is, to be wanted and appreciated by someone who will amount to so much more than he can even dream of. Finn’s best quality is that he is earnest and eager to please. He doesn’t have big dreams or a giant bank account or a vocabulary that ventures past three-syllable words. And Rachel still wants him.

Finn is the luckiest boy on Earth.

Quinn dances with Joe and tries to keep eye contact. She tries to make conversation and appear like she’s interested because she does like Joe. He’s like Finn—good and nice, as adaptable as a puppy—only he’s got strength of conviction. He believes in something other than a girlfriend, and that should make Quinn want to date him. Instead, it makes her curious about herself.

What does she believe? Will there ever be a point in her life when she isn’t wondering what kind of person she is? This was supposed to stop when she decided to apply to Yale. And then when it didn’t, it was supposed to stop when she got accepted to Yale. Because that was a direction, something about herself that she could actually explain to people. But it only yielded more questions, and Quinn isn’t sure if she’s ever going to find answers. Certainly not anytime soon.

It’s sad that this is what she’s thinking while Joe’s dancing with her. He’s a good dancer and his hands are wrapped around her back, and they’re strong and warm and it’s really sad that they don’t make her feel anything at all.

She slips out of his grip after the song ends, using the excuse that she’ll be right back with punch for both of them. Instead she turns down hallways until she makes it outside to her favorite hidden corner. She just sits.

This would be a really great time to take up smoking again.

/

“There you are. Britts and I were getting ready to head out. We’re gonna grab some late-night munchies over at that crappy diner. Wanna join?”

(Quinn looks away before she answers. Even Santana has changed into the person she’s supposed to be. Three years later and Quinn’s first worst dream has come true—Santana Lopez got to have everything before she did).

“Hello, Q? Oh, god. You’ve gone Skank again. Quick, put on a cardigan and some Mary Janes before you start inhaling cigarettes.”

Quinn can’t help laughing at that. “You are so lame,” she chuckles.

“Ah, but I made you smile. So maybe you’re a little lame, too.”

Quinn flicks a pebble by her foot. “Yeah, maybe.”

Santana walks closer to her, heels clacking and crunching on the gravel. “Really, though. Are you okay? Do I need to make an appointment for tattoo removal again?”

“No. And no.”

“Oookay. Do you want to talk about it?”

Quinn looks at Santana and uses her knees as leverage to stand up. “Let’s eat,” she says instead.

Santana rolls her eyes. “Whatever.” She walks away and leaves Quinn to follow her, and it’s kind of crazy how it used to be the opposite. Quinn used to think that this would feel a lot worse than it actually does.

They walk to the diner, preferring not to call the limo until they’re actually on their way home. Brittany takes her shoes off but Santana keeps hers on, so they’re actually the same height for once. Quinn can tell that Santana enjoys it more than she’s letting on. She keeps swinging their hands between them, watching the path they take when they come back to rest in the middle.

A few other prom groups have had the same idea; the diner is half-full with out-of-place tuxedos and gowns. Quinn wishes they could be somewhere that doesn’t have laughing couples, but at least the waitress puts them toward the back where it’s quieter. And she can’t really get her wish anyway, not if she’s going to be eating with Brittany and Santana. They rarely stop laughing.

Quinn orders a grilled cheese with extra fries because it feels like a good time to eat greasy food, especially if she’s not going to smoke. A girl’s gotta have at least one of her vices.

The cook in the back must obviously know that anyone who’s ordering extra fries on prom night is probably sad, because the pile that the waitress brings back can only be described as monstrous. Even that is underestimating it.

“Jeez, Fabray, unless you’re pregnant again I don’t think you’re ever going to finish those.”

Quinn glares. “Says the girl who polished off two burgers and I don’t even know how many brats at Puck’s barbecue last summer.”

“I have no limits when it comes to freshly-grilled food,” Santana says as she steals a fry.

Santana and Brittany eat off each other’s plates like they always do. It’s the way they’ve always eaten, even before they were officially a couple. Practically from the first moment they met, they were sharing spoons and reaching over everyone else to spear a bite of steak. It’s why Quinn singled out Santana as her biggest rival, because why did she get to have that kind of happiness when she tried so hard not to want it? It wasn’t that Quinn wanted a relationship like Santana and Brittany’s, although she’d be lying if she said that wasn’t a tiny part of it. She didn’t need a relationship to be happy—and anyway, having something doesn’t always mean you’re happy. It took Santana three years to really get the point, so that isn’t it at all.

It’s just that the kind of connection that Brittany and Santana have—the kind where they wear each other’s clothes so much that they really only have one wardrobe; where they don’t even notice how much they touch each other every day because it’s so natural for them; where they know each other inside and out, even (especially) the bad parts and that’s okay—it’s the kind of connection that Lucy used to read about in her favorite books. It’s the kind that she used to yearn for—deep, painful, impossible yearning. Brittany and Santana belong in novels where everything is just a little too beautiful and real and perfect. Words are a little too right; characters are a little too human; events unfold in too-convenient ways. Brittany and Santana have always been a little too much of everything, which is probably why it took them so long to find a happy medium.

Above everything else, this is what Quinn wonders about herself—why she can’t seem to find anyone who will be ‘too much’ with her. Because Quinn has always been too much. Lucy was too fat, Quinn was too strict, then too loose, then too unhinged, and now she’s too lost. She needs something to ground her. She’s spent all year trying to find it, and no matter where she looked—the Skanks, Beth, Puck, Sam, Shelby, herself, Joe—she never got anything. There were moments when she was _so_ close (too close), but those always ended up slipping away.

Quinn lets her mind drift as she tries to remember those moments. They are memories, wispier than they already were when they happened, but she can still feel enough of them. She remembers confrontations under the bleachers, where she thought that maybe there were people who appreciated her. She remembers a scolding in the hallway, the relief when she finally confessed her desire to go to Yale. She remembers advice about teen weddings in the bathroom; hugs after Regionals in the hallway; hugs just a few hours ago—in the hallway again—after doing something really selfless and nice.

(Maybe it wasn’t completely selfless. Quinn knew it was something that would make her feel good. She just didn’t expect it to make her feel _this_ good.)

Quinn wonders if maybe she should just spend the rest of her life in hallways because they seem to be enlightening places.

She wonders what it means that all her moments were with Rachel. If anyone asked, Quinn would say that Rachel’s opinion doesn’t really mean that much to her, except that’s mostly a lie. Rachel doesn’t know anything about her, at least not in the way that Finn, Puck, Brittany and Santana do. They don’t have a past with memories because neither of them really wants to remember what happened before they were friends. That’s why Quinn trusts her so much—because she says what she’s thinking without fear of repercussions. Rachel doesn’t need to worry about what she says because she doesn’t know all of Quinn’s little hang-ups. She doesn’t know which words are wrong to say because Quinn’s dad used to say them, or which topics are off-limits because there’s still a little fleck of insanity lurking in her brain.

Quinn knows exactly what Rachel would say, too. If she came to Rachel with all her worries and insecurities and questions, she knows that Rachel would comfort her first. She would assure her that it’s okay to feel what she’s feeling and that she’s so much more than the pretty cheerleader, and maybe there are some activities she can consider joining, because activities stimulate the brain and studies have shown that active brains lead to a calmer, more satisfied outlook on life, you know. Or she could take some time for herself, get back into reading or maybe start writing because you’ve always been so eloquent, Quinn, and I know you could turn that into something really great if you tried. But you just need to do whatever you need to to be happy, okay? It’s okay to need someone and it’s okay _not_ to need someone, too, and either way I’ll be here if you need to process things further. I’d be _glad_ to help, really—if you schedule time with me in advance, I’d be happy to come up with a list of ideas. I’m very good at finding direction. It doesn’t even have to be my own.

Quinn knows that Rachel would check up on her later, asking questions in the choir room or the auditorium or probably the hall because that seems to bring a lot of questions out of her. And wherever they are, Rachel would hug her, warning her first because even though she’s not shy around Quinn anymore, she’s still weird about physical boundaries. And Quinn would hug back and smile because she wants to tell Rachel to stop being weird about it because it’s not weird anymore, but she wouldn’t know the words because that’s a really strange thing to say to someone. Quinn knows all of this.

And three-quarters of the way through her giant plate of fries, she finally knows what she didn’t know before.

If Santana was in this situation, if she was looking to Brittany for this kind of advice and if she were this worried and thoughtful about it, there is really only one way Quinn would react. She would tell Santana to get over herself, to just man up and talk to Brittany because it’s obvious to everyone what she’s really stressing about. Putting this kind of thought into someone, into why they’re the best person to help you, that’s what you do when you’re in love. You worry about other people’s opinions if you just care about them. You worry that they might think less of you or judge you. You don’t do that when you’re in love. When you’re in love, there is no need to worry about what that one person thinks of you because you already know that even in the worst of times, you’re still their number one. The only reason they’ll ever be disappointed in you is because you’re not being who they know you are. A friend is disappointed in you when you’re not being who they thought you were.

Quinn does not worry about what Rachel thinks of her. She only worries about what Rachel will say because she knows it’s something she doesn’t want to hear or believe. She worries about what Rachel will say because Rachel is honest and arrives at the same conclusions Quinn does, only she has the guts to admit them. But mostly Quinn doesn’t worry about Rachel because Rachel is the one person she trusts most. When it comes to the big things, the things that matter—feelings, truth, laughter, intrigue—Rachel is the one person that Quinn can count on.

She doesn’t fawn over Rachel or swoon any time she walks into a room or all that other cliché stuff the movies advertise. She doesn’t spend hours thinking about Rachel or writing about her or imagining romantic futures. But Quinn is indubitably in love with Rachel Berry.

It isn’t even a question. It isn’t something she can doubt at all. She trusts Rachel with the best and worst of her, with the dreams she’s too afraid to share and the fears she’s too ashamed to admit. She trusts Rachel to forgive her, even when she shouldn’t. She trusts Rachel to help her, to always care about her. She trusts Rachel to trust her.

If Quinn asked, she’s pretty sure Santana would say she feels the same way about Brittany. Quinn is pretty close to asking.

“Q?”

Quinn drops the fry she’d been holding and jolts her head from its resting place on her hand. “Yep, I’m here.”

“Clearly,” Santana retorts. “Are you spacing out or have those fries finally put you in a grease-coma?”

Quinn hesitates, then pushes the plate away from her. “Nah, I’m done. You were right, I guess.”

Santana gives her a long look. “Okay. Then let’s pay.” She swats Brittany’s hand away from her clutch. Quinn doesn’t know if Santana’s ever let Brittany pay for anything, especially since they went public.

So she grabs both of their wallets, just in case they try to be sneaky, and hands the waitress her credit card before they have a moment to protest. “My apologies for being the third wheel tonight,” she justifies.

Santana gives her a smile and thanks her.

Quinn decides that Santana is going to answer her questions tonight just as soon as she can find the right words to ask them.

* * *

 

It’s two forty five by the time Quinn musters up the nerve to call Santana, and she hasn’t slept a wink.

The phone rings three times and Quinn almost hangs up.

“Better be fucking good, Q.”

“I’m not interrupting anything, right? You’re not…busy?”

Santana’s sigh is heavy, crackling into Quinn’s earpiece. “Well, Britt wanted to go for round four but my legs are jelly and she passed out instead.”

Quinn wrinkles her nose. “Gross. You should come outside then. I’m on your stoop.”

The door opens a moment later and Santana at least had the decency to put on clothes. Quinn has been present for less tactful times.

“Got a lady-boner you need to take care of, Q? Or am I just that lovely to be around?” Santana folds her arms across the chest, protecting against the drop in temperature. It might be May, but it’s still the early hours of the morning. It’s freaking cold.

“I need to talk,” Quinn answers.

“About what?”

“Rachel.”

“And how you’re totally gay for her?”

“Yes.”

By the way that Santana chokes on her yawn and how her eyes almost completely bug out of her head, Quinn doesn’t think Santana was being serious. Too bad; she was the only one.

“Quinn, you’re shitting me,” Santana blurts.

“I’m not,” Quinn whispers, and most of her words get stuck in the middle of a sudden onslaught of tears. She certainly wasn’t expecting that.

Santana softens immediately (or at least as soft as Santana can get). “Jesus Christ, Fabray. Come inside.” She puts her arms around Quinn’s shoulders and guides her through the door.

Quinn pulls away as fast as she can. “No.”

“Why the crap not?”

_Because I want to be able to run away. Because I don’t want to be in the same house as you when I know Brittany’s sleeping upstairs_ , she thinks.

“Just because,” she says, piling on the attitude so maybe Santana will believe her.

(She doesn’t).

“Yeah, okay. You should get over that _real_ quick.” And with that she’s inside, sobbing on Santana’s leather couch while her bleary-eyed friend makes noises in the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water, some ice cream, and two spoons.

Santana just digs into the Moose Tracks and waits for Quinn to compose herself. She periodically hands over tissues, nudges the water closer to her on the table. Santana’s a pretty great friend.

“I could be sleeping right now, you know.”

Okay, _sometimes_ she’s a pretty great friend.

“So could I,” Quinn croaks. She swats at her face with a tissue and thrusts out her hand. “Gimme that spoon.” A moment later, Quinn practically has half the tub of ice cream hanging off the end of her spoon and she couldn’t care less. She hasn’t eaten ice cream—like, _really_ eaten it—in months and it tastes spectacular.

“So, Rachel, huh?”

Quinn swallows and takes a moment before answering. “Yeah, looks that way.

“Wanna clue me in?”

She leans back into the couch. It would be easy to fall asleep right now except her mind is buzzing so fast she’s pretty sure her head is going to pull an Inspector Gadget and pop off.

“No, I want to ask you something.”

“How I knew? When I knew, blah blah blah?”

Quinn shakes her head. “No, I don’t care about that. I mean for _me_ ,” she clarifies after seeing the glare on Santana’s face. “If you want to tell me later how that all went down I’d be glad to hear it. But I’m not freaking out about if I’m gay or not. Maybe I will later; who knows. What I want to know is…look, I’ve been in love before. I know people probably don’t think I have because I’m kind of messed up when it comes to emotions, but I have. And I know what it feels like to be in love and that’s how I feel about Rachel so that isn’t my question. I just want to know how you knew Brittany loved you back. I mean, she probably said it to you but that’s not what I mean.” She looks at Santana and is surprised to find shock, maybe fear in her eyes, like this is still something she doesn’t want to talk about. Or maybe she’s just not used to talking about it with Quinn because they don’t do this, ever. “How did it feel, Santana? How _does_ it feel, being loved like that? I just, I need to know how it feels. If I don’t get that from Rachel, then I’ll have to change the way I feel because I can’t take another disappointment. Do you think there’s a chance? Do you think maybe she feels the way I want her to?”

“She’s engaged, Quinn,” is all Santana says.

“Right.”

It’s all she needs to say, really. Even in the best-case scenario, there’s still Finn. And that best-case scenario ends with him getting hurt, so maybe it isn’t so great after all. Maybe Quinn should just focus on the engagement, turn down the path to which she’s grown so accustomed, the one littered with sad brown leaves and wilting trees.

“I always knew she loved me,” Santana continues. “I never doubted it. I just didn’t _want_ to know it. If she said it out loud then I’d know for sure just how much I was hurting her. But I needed to hear it so bad. When Brittany finally told me she loved me, it hurt a lot. She said she loved me and then she completely shut me down. She picked Artie and it took me a long time to understand why she did that. And yeah, it worked out eventually. But not because of how we felt about each other.” Santana sticks her spoon in the half-melted ice cream and grabs Quinn’s hands. “There’s always a chance, Quinn. But sometimes you have to make it yourself.”

“This isn’t something I can force on her, Santana,” Quinn whispers.

“No,” Santana agrees, “but you can’t just let it go by, either. These are _your_ feelings, Quinn. Rachel isn’t going to know them just by the way you look at her. She isn’t going to magically guess things and fall at your feet because all of her dreams have finally come true. You have to ask.”

“When Brittany said no,” Quinn asks, “did it really hurt that bad?”

“It sucked,” Santana bristles.

Quinn nods because that’s exactly what she’s afraid of. Not that Rachel will say no because it’s not totally about Rachel. But it’s that rejection, of not being good enough _again_ , that low you hit when you don’t get something you really, really wanted—that’s what scares Quinn the most. She’s afraid that maybe she hasn’t really found the reason why she’s been feeling so out of sorts lately. If it isn’t Rachel, then Quinn doesn’t think she has the strength to start over.

“What you have to understand about no, Quinn, is that it doesn’t mean never.”

“Yeah, but I can’t take any more waiting.”

Santana rests her head on Quinn’s shoulder. Quinn pretends not to smell what she’s pretty sure is at least three hours’ worth of sex. It’s at least nice to know that someone is looking out for her.

“Sometimes waiting is all we have, Q.”

This is one of those things that Rachel would tell her, the truths about the world that Quinn doesn’t want to know. Maybe Santana and Rachel would be good friends if they ever gave it a chance.

She sits with Santana for a while, watching the ice cream melt. That’s what waiting does. It melts ice cream, softens butter, thaws popsicles. If you wait too long, you get to a point where you can’t go back. The ice cream won’t freeze the right way again. It’ll just be frozen ice cream soup, and it won’t taste the same. Anyone who eats it will know it’s melted, and that’s what Quinn doesn’t want. She doesn’t want to be melted ice cream soup that only sad people eat. She wants to be solid, tasty ice cream, the kind that cures every problem and makes you happy even if you know you’re still going to be sad later.

(The real problem is that no matter what kind you’re eating, you’re always going to run out of ice cream eventually, so what does it matter if she’s the broken kind?)

Besides, she’s been waiting with Santana now for at least half an hour and that isn’t so bad. Maybe she can handle it.

“I really have to talk to her, don’t I?”

“Yeah,” Santana mumbles. She’s almost asleep. “You really do. And you have to do one other thing.”

“What?”

“You have to carry me back to my room because I don’t even know how I managed to get downstairs in the first place.”

Quinn rolls her eyes and gets off the couch, standing with her back to Santana. She crouches down. “Hop on then.”

“Oh my _god_ , you’re a lifesaver, Quinn,” Santana groans as she clambers onto Quinn’s back.

Quinn laughs as she meanders through Santana’s house, careful not to hit any tables or chairs. She almost loses her balance twice on the way up, and she giggles both times as Santana curses in her ear. There used to be a time when she could practically run with Santana on her back. Quinn decides to schedule some time to practice again before they all go off to college.

Santana’s door is partially open when they reach her room. The light from the hallway is the only thing that lets Quinn see past the three feet in between Santana’s wall and her bed.

“Oh look, she flipped over,” Santana says, pointing to Brittany lying on her stomach, sheets only pulled up to the middle of her back.

“Thank _god_ ,” Quinn mutters, and drops Santana somewhat gracelessly next to her. “You good? You don’t need me to take off your pants or anything?”

“Why, are you offering?” Santana smirks.

“Yeah, you’re good. I’m gonna go now.”

“’Kay.” Santana wrestles the covers from Brittany and pulls some over herself. “Whenever you talk to her, let me know. I hope it goes okay, Q.”

Quinn nods and thanks her and lets herself out of Santana’s house. The night is still cool but it doesn’t feel cold, maybe because she’s not feeling so conflicted anymore. Now Quinn has something to prepare for.

She’s pretty similar to Santana when it comes to emotions and how she doesn’t deal with them at all, and since everything sucked for Santana, Quinn is pretty sure it’s going to suck for her, too. Which isn’t the greatest thing in the world, but at least it won’t be out of the blue.

_Sorry it’s early, hope this doesn’t wake you. Can we grab some coffee tomorrow?_

It’s a vague text, but all of her moments with Rachel started off really vague anyway, so at least she’s consistent. Maybe it means that this text is another moment.

That’s the nice part about waiting, she supposes. At least it gives you time to hope.


	2. Chapter 2

Quinn Fabray is not someone who shows up late to places. She might not have given them much credence over the years, but there is one bit of her parents that’s always stuck with her: “If you can’t be on time, be early.” It’s why Quinn always travels with a book, her iPod, and a pen and paper, just in case she wants to switch up the creative outlet of the day. She might be alone sitting in a doctor’s office or a restaurant or study hall, but Quinn has spent a lot of her life waiting. She’s gotten good at it.

But all the courage she had when she texted Rachel has completely left her. She can’t handle the waiting. She doesn’t want to be the first one there, the one sitting anxiously in the window with a cold cup of coffee and fingers too anxious to turn pages or write words. They probably couldn’t even drum on the Styrofoam cup, so there go all three of her options. Rachel has this way of dismantling all of her routines and she doesn’t even have to be there to make it happen.

Rachel had texted back at eight that morning and when Quinn read it at nine thirty, she’d had to laugh. Who wakes up at eight in the morning the day after prom? Especially when that prom resulted in you becoming Prom Queen, allowing you to cross off one of your two hundred and forty seven bucket list items.

(There really are that many. Quinn tried to read them all once, but she had to stop at sixty seven. It hurt).

So when the text says that Rachel will meet her at two o’clock, Quinn is okay. She’s fine. And then at one thirty, her heart starts hammering. She finally realizes that she doesn’t have a plan beyond ‘talk to Rachel.’ Which is absurd, really; Quinn always has a plan. She arranges her words down to the conjunction—selects every preposition and adverb until they’re wonderful noun phrases, caustic appositives, unsettling dependent clauses. Quinn prepares speeches so meticulously that she can predict how people are going to respond. It was an essential strategy to getting through high school, because how else are you going to let people know you’re superior unless you actually are?

But Quinn doesn’t know how Rachel is going to respond. She hopes, but she doesn’t know, and there’s Rachel Berry making her falter all over again.

So she calls Santana and flips out and not even her friend’s tough love can bolster her resolve. Santana eventually hands the phone to Brittany and as far as Quinn can tell, Brittany’s completely in the dark about this whole thing. At least in the sense that Santana hasn’t told her. She’s got a sixth sense of her own about these things, and that’s what succeeds in calming Quinn down.

(“Well, it’s like, it’s always been this way with Rachel, right? I mean, you’ve never really known how to act around her or, like, figure her out.”

“Right.”

“So this is the same. You don’t have to do anything different.”

Quinn had taken a moment to actually absorb Brittany’s advice. “You mean, I shouldn’t freak out because I know how to… _not_ know what to do?”

“Yeah!”

And it had worked.)

So Quinn rolls up to the Lima Bean at 2:10, which might as well be 3:00 for how off-kilter she feels.

This time, Rachel is the girl in the window. Quinn can’t tell if her coffee is cold, but she’s sitting comfortably. Her fingers are still and her eyes gambol around the room, watching patrons and baristas as if they’re a fascinating drama. (Everything is a fascinating drama to Rachel Berry, Quinn thinks. She wonders if that’s the only reason Rachel has forgiven her.)

Quinn can’t put it off any longer so she walks into the coffee shop, blows right past Rachel, and orders a drink with twice the amount of caffeine that they can probably legally give her. She looks around while she’s waiting for it, pretending to only have just noticed Rachel. The smile she gives her, however, is so far from pretend that she thinks the whole charade might have been useless.

“Took you long enough,” Rachel jokes when Quinn sits down.

“Sorry, the day got ahead of me,” Quinn mumbles, trying not to blush. Curse her porcelain complexion. “How are you doing, Your Majesty?”

Rachel smiles and bows her head. “Clever. I’m doing alright. I still can’t believe we just had senior prom. It might sound silly, but I kind of want to start high school all over.”

Quinn laughs, a sharp boom that she wasn’t expecting. “You must be a glutton for punishment, then. I can’t _wait_ to get away.”

Rachel shrugs. “I don’t know, it’s a nice feeling, to know that I went from some place so low to senior Prom Queen. Not that that was my dream or anything, but it feels a little like I’ve won.”

“I’d say it’s a _lot_ like you’ve won. You should get a gold star for that.”

Rachel sips her coffee, smiling. “My, aren’t you the witty one today?”

“High school’s almost over. I’m in a good mood.”

It’s the biggest lie she’s ever told, but Quinn doesn’t want to stop trading zingers with Rachel. If she stops, then she’ll have to find unfamiliar words to answer the questions she knows Rachel will ask.

Rachel cocks her head and rearranges her expression. Her smile thins; her eyes, so expansive and bright before, squint light in a very narrow, concentrated path at Quinn.

“Are you?” she asks, and it’s not like Quinn could have expected less. This is what Rachel does. “Most people in good moods don’t text their friends at three in the morning looking for a chat.”

Quinn averts her eyes, embarrassed. The way that Rachel just cuts to the heart of every truth she doesn’t want to address—and she does it without Santana’s manipulation, without Mr. Schue’s pomposity, without Sue’s aggression—completely disarms her. Every time.

“It was my idea,” Quinn says, and those are the last words she expected. Moments like this are why she prepares everything (and, contrarily, the reason why sometimes she can’t). “To make you Prom Queen, I mean. You didn’t…you didn’t win.”

“Oh.” Rachel nods sadly. “Well, I kind of thought something like that anyway. I mean, I know I’m not the most adored person at McKinley. I knew it wasn’t a genuine vote.”

“God, Rachel, will you just stop?” Quinn is suddenly angry. Somehow even her best intentions end up with her yelling at Rachel Berry. “No one hates you. You’re not some gross social leper like Jacob Ben Israel.”

“You sound like Finn.” Rachel isn’t smiling.

“Yeah, I do,” Quinn says, and if that isn’t the biggest clue she could ever give, she doesn’t know what is. She half hopes that Rachel will pick up on it. But as perceptive as she is, Rachel sometimes ignores what’s directly in front of her. (Even if that something is the blond rival-turned-confidante that she’s spent four years explicitly not-ignoring). “It isn’t out of the realm of possibility that you could win on your own.”

“Clearly it is, since it didn’t happen.”

“It did happen. It happened because I—because you deserved it the most. Out of anyone, Rachel, you deserved that moment of happiness.”

“What, and you didn’t want it?”

“I didn’t win,” Quinn lies. “Santana did. By one vote.”

“Oh. So, what, you needed coffee to tell me that?”

“No. Aren’t you going to ask me why I rigged it?”

“Will you actually tell me?” Rachel says, nervously smoothing the cardboard barrier on her cup. Her voice is quiet. “I don’t mean to bring up the past, or to accuse you of anything, but you’re no stranger to manipulating situations to get what you want. Sometimes you have ulterior motives and you don’t really tell the truth.”

“I do have ulterior motives,” Quinn admits.

“I thought we were past that, Quinn,” Rachel sighs.

“Don’t presume to think that you know what my motives are. You don’t.”

“I see why you got into Yale. Quite a vocabulary.”

Neither of them touches their coffee.

“How long have you wanted to be on Broadway? Just answer the question,” Quinn says when Rachel puffs out her cheek in confusion. “I mean, theater’s been your thing forever, right?”

“Yes,” Rachel answers cautiously.

“I don’t have anything like that. I used to think that books were my thing—that words were special gifts made just for me, like they explained my life and made me question it at the same time. I used to think that books held my dreams. But I was wrong.”

“What—”

“Books were _Lucy’s_ thing,” Quinn continues, louder than Rachel so it seems like she’s got a point, or at least the nerve to make one. “Religion was supposed to be Quinn’s thing, but I never believed it enough. It didn’t feel the same. And I was so horrible to you because you were so sure. You had your thing, that one constant ideal. Theater was what kept you going through the day even when we were complete assholes to you. You were everything I was supposed to be and it made me furious.”

“I don’t—”

“It changed, somewhere along the way. I don’t really know when it was, but I was studying or something one night and I realized I didn’t hate you at all. You were always in my face about Finn or Sue or something like that and I’d come to expect you always just…there. You’d turned into my constant. You’d turned into my thing.”

Rachel looks at her for so long and Quinn wonders if she’s going to get a genuine response or a quip that Rachel is a person and it isn’t right to objectify her.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Quinn,” Rachel murmurs.

“I’m saying that you’re my goal. I don’t live for you like you do for theater, but I believe in you just as much. I admire you. You’re the only thing right now that I’m sure of my feelings for. I know that I like being around you; I know that I hold your opinion higher than anyone else’s. And I know, more than anything else, that I love you. That I’m in love with you.” Quinn clears her throat. “I know this isn’t the same as Finn telling you he loves you—it doesn’t give you the same butterflies or whatever; it isn’t very romantic and I’m sorry for that. You really do deserve romance. But this is what I know, and I—I just think that you should know it, too.”

For the first time in a long time, Quinn can’t really read the expression in Rachel’s eyes. She’s shocked, sure, but her eyebrows flicker in a way that could be relieved or sad. The ten seconds that Quinn spends watching her are the longest ten seconds of her life.

“I don’t know what to say,” Rachel finally says.

“Figures,” Quinn scoffs.

“No, Quinn, please don’t be angry. That was—a _lot_ to take in and saying that I wasn’t expecting it at all is quite a big understatement. I just need a moment to organize my thoughts. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“But you have to,” Quinn finishes. “You don’t want to hurt me, but you’re going to anyway.”

There are tears in Rachel’s eyes. It’s probably the biggest clue Quinn is going to get. “I don’t know, Quinn; I—”

“Look, it’s a simple question, Rachel: do I have a chance or don’t I? Yes or no?”

“It isn’t as simple as that,” Rachel whispers.

In spite of herself, in spite of the hope she’s not allowing herself to feel, Quinn perks up. “It isn’t?”

“I have to go,” Rachel says, and then she runs.

Quinn slumps in her chair and watches as Rachel drives away.

She’s still the girl in the window.

/

(“She doesn’t hate you, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry it sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna stay tonight?”

“Can I hug your girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

Brittany slides over and Quinn buries herself in her arms. It should make her sad because this is what Santana gets every day, but mostly she feels safe.)

* * *

 

Rachel doesn’t text her or call her for the rest of the day. It’s understandable, but it’s also still disappointing. Quinn blames years of reading fantasy novels for the situations her mind is creating at the moment. Rachel isn’t calling back because she’s been abducted or hit by a car or she tripped on a rock walking away, and the ensuing concussion created internal bleeding so severe that she hemorrhaged before anyone could treat her. Or—and this is the worst option of them all—she’s so freaked out by Quinn’s confession that she’s gone to Finn’s house and is having sex with him right now.

Inside of her mind are a thousand dragons and one damsel very much in distress, but Quinn’s horse is too far away for her to play the white knight.

(You’d never know it by the look on her face, though. For all Santana and Brittany know, she’s crying because Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore can’t ever be together again. But Quinn doesn’t find that depressing; she knows that all the best love stories have sad endings).

Still, she wipes the tears hastily from her eyes and tries not to appear too hopeful when her phone rings. _It’s not Rachel, it’s not Rachel, it’s not Rachel_ , she tells herself, though the pounding of her heart says differently.

She’s right, though. It isn’t.

“Hello?”

“You have impeccable timing, Quinn Fabray,” comes the quiet, serious voice on the other end. “Far be it from me to judge who you fall in love with, but I have to imagine that there were better times to spring it on her than right after she got to have her perfect prom with the boy she loves.”

“Kurt…”

“Have you told him? Does he know yet? Or were you just hoping to let Rachel deal with that part? Because we all have school on Monday, Quinn. We have to practice in Glee for Nationals and you’re going to have to be around both of them. Finn might not be the smartest tree in the forest, but he’s going to notice when his fiancée and ex-girlfriend suddenly can’t stand to look at each other. Are you going to let her explain why? Or does she have to make a decision in the next two days? Either way you’ve set her up for heartbreak.”

“I could say the same—”

“ _No_ , Quinn,” Kurt scolds, “you couldn’t say the same of Rachel. She didn’t gush confessions of love for you, but that isn’t the same as breaking your heart. This is on you. I don’t know what kind of vendetta you have against this girl, but everything you do seems to ruin her life.”

“I don’t have any kind of vendetta against her, Kurt. Please…please take a walk with me and let me explain,” she says.

“Fine,” he grumbles.

“Thank you,” she exhales, her breath cracking. “I’ll, um, I’ll pick you up.”

“I’ll be waiting on tenterhooks, I’m sure.”

Quinn runs a hand through her hair and makes a noise that’s supposed to be a laugh. It doesn’t sound like one. “Kurt, is she—”

“She’s fine,” Kurt sighs, and he doesn’t sound angry anymore. He just sounds tired. “She’s sleeping on my bed. Finn is out with Puck and Blaine will make sure she isn’t bothered.”

“I’ll see you soon,” she mumbles, and it isn’t until she hangs up that she realizes Santana and Brittany have paused the movie and are staring at her.

“Was that Kurt?” Santana asks.

“Yeah. I think Rachel went over to…well, he’s a little angry with me right now. I’m gonna go talk with him.”

“Do you want us to do anything?” Brittany chimes in.

Quinn purses her lips and presses her trembling fingers to her thighs. Her knuckles turn white but she can’t get the shaking to stop.

“Can you drive? My hands are—I don’t really want to drive right now.”

“Sure thing, Q.” Santana gets up from the couch, kissing Brittany a little longer than she normally does when she leaves the house. “Pizza should be here any minute; there’s money on the counter. Tip however much you want.”

Brittany smiles and nods. “’Kay. Love you, Quinn.”

Quinn gives a little wave as she follows Santana to the door. “Yeah, thanks Britt.”

She cries the whole way to Kurt’s house. Quinn notices the sad smiles Kurt and Santana exchange when he gets in the car and she feels terrible. Once again she’s let her emotions get out of control and they’ve hurt a lot of people. Quinn Fabray is a time bomb with a lot of collateral damage.

Kurt slides into the back seat and doesn’t say a word. No one does until Santana drops both of them off at a park nearby, and even then it’s only Quinn telling Santana that she doesn’t need to wait; they’ll walk back to Kurt’s and he’ll give her a ride home.

“I hope that isn’t code for ‘Kurt will let me go up and speak to Rachel again,’ because I can promise you that won’t happen.”

“No, Quinn says, shaking her head. “I was just counting on your unfailing gallantry to not leave me stranded, whatever the outcome of this conversation may be.”

“I’m not here to yell at you, Quinn.” Kurt smiles and raises his arms. “Come here. You look awful.”

Quinn sniffles and lets him hug her. It’s funny; of all the Glee boys, Kurt has always been the small one. Finn towers over everyone and Puck is so full of testosterone that he couldn’t ever have been tiny. But Kurt was fragile and sensitive. He had wispy hair and rosy cheeks, and even though Quinn knows that, emotionally, he’s made of steel, she’s never really considered the idea that a hug from Kurt Hummel might be one of the most solid things she’s ever felt. But his arms are protective and warm, and Quinn almost falls asleep.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers into his chest.

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to,” he answers.

“I’m not sorry that I love her.”

“You shouldn’t be. But you still owe her an apology.” He gently pulls her arms from his back and holds them at her sides, appraising her. “You know, I’ve never been able to figure you out, Quinn.”

“Join the club,” she huffs, linking her arm through his. She means to walk all the way around the park, talking, but her legs are as stable as a baby giraffe’s and those swings are starting to look really comfortable. She guides him over and they sit, rocking gently as if this day were relaxing at all.

“What can’t you figure out?” she prompts. Quinn figures it’s best to let him lead the conversation or else she’s going to end up bawling. She might anyway, but at least this way, there’s a chance she won’t.

He scuffs his boots in the woodchips. “I don’t understand the way your mind works. You join Glee to sabotage it from within, which I understand. You make Rachel’s life miserable because you feel threatened, which—as deplorable as it is—I understand. But then you become her friend. You give her advice, you let her do the same for you, and suddenly you’re in love with her?”

“It wasn’t sudden,” Quinn says. “I just…tried not to believe it.”

“Why?”

She rocks her swing sideways and bumps gently into his. “When you had your giant crush on Finn, why didn’t you tell anyone about it?”

“Are you serious?”

“Why did you go to all that trouble to be near him—setting up your parents, giving Rachel a makeover. Why didn’t you just talk to someone about it?”

“Because it was ridiculous, the token gay kid falling for the star quarterback.”

“Hmm. And what would you say about the head cheerleader falling for the obnoxious choir geek?”

He bumps her swing back a little harder the next time she floats close enough. “I see your point.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you think this through at all, Quinn? Did you stop at all to think how this might be extremely traumatic for Rachel?”

“No,” Quinn pouts. “I was too busy being traumatized myself. I flipped out, called Santana, and she’s the one who told me to talk to Rachel.”

“Oh, well, of course,” Kurt scoffs. “She got the girl, so why wouldn’t she tell you to do the same?”

“Exactly.”

“You could have waited, at least until you’d come up with a plan. Going off the cuff like this never ends well even when it does.”

“I had to tell her. It’s better when things are out in the open, right? I mean, all of that stuff went down with you and Finn and look where you both are now.”

Kurt laughs bitterly. “You know, people spend a lot of time telling me how much better my life’s gotten and they conveniently forget about the time when it was worse.”

“I couldn’t wait, Kurt. She’s marrying Finn and going off to New York and I couldn’t let her go without telling her—without seeing if I had a chance at…”

“At what?” Kurt coaxes.

“Love,” she croaks. “Honest love. I don’t think I really know what that feels like.”

“Finn loved you,” Kurt points out. “Puck loved you.”

“Yes, but—”

“But you didn’t want them to.” She shakes her head. “Quinn, even if, by some wonderful, lovely plot twist, Rachel left Finn for you, you’d still be going in two different directions. You’re off to Yale and she blew her NYADA audition. She’s not going to New York.”

“Yes, she _is_ ,” Quinn insists. “Rachel belongs in New York. It’s what she’s wanted ever since she was—”

“Ever since she was, what, a freshman in high school? Twelve years old? Three? Do you know when Rachel decided she wanted to be on Broadway? Do you know what she wanted to do before that? Do you know what she’s planning on doing now? And suddenly you’re telling her that you love her, that she should fit you into her life even more than she already does?”

“But—”

“You don’t know Rachel, Quinn. You know what you see at school. You know what she wants you to know—Broadway and drama and ambition. But you don’t know the person behind that.”

“So I should give up?”

Kurt sighs and looks at the ground. “Sometimes we have feelings too late. Sometimes we have to let them go in the name of practicality. Because they’re not going to amount to anything, and it’s best not to hurt anyone. And sometimes”—he takes her hand and makes sure she’s looking at him—“sometimes things are grey, and we have a little window to act on our feelings before it gets to be too late.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you should get to know her before the grey becomes black. And when the time is right, you should ask her where you stand.”

Quinn squeezes his hand and they swing in tandem until the sun disappears and darkness falls so heavy that she can’t see her feet.


	3. Chapter 3

Most people, as they get older, grow upwards. Santana Lopez grew upwards, albeit at a very slow rate. Noah Puckerman grew upwards; he just didn’t like to tell anyone about it. Rachel Berry grew upwards. Rachel Berry _shot_ upwards. Like, Jack and the Beanstalk kind of upwards.

Quinn didn’t.

Quinn Fabray grew sideways.

She created two versions of herself, kind of like her own little parallel universes, only she was living both of them at the same time.

 _Stop being so mean,_ Lucy would say.

 _Quit being a coward_ , Quinn would respond.

It’s tough to do anything when all of your instincts are pulling you in mutually exclusive directions. Mostly it’s just really difficult to sleep.

(She doesn’t sleep well that night).

* * *

 

In hindsight, she should have avoided The Lima Bean. It’s the only place people hang out before 9:00, before they all flock to the house of the week and drink themselves to unconsciousness. And then they’re back here the next day because they still think coffee cures a hangover.

It doesn’t but Finn is here anyway, and Quinn should have stayed away.

There is at least one reason, Quinn learns, why Finn and Rachel are perfect for each other: they’re both excellent stormers. Rachel huffs out of a room like no one’s business, and if the way Finn is rushing at her right now is any indication, the boy knows how make an entrance. Quinn can only stare at him, wide-eyed, because this is not melodramatic or self-righteous Finn. This is a Finn who is justifiably and extremely angry with her.

“What the hell, Quinn?” he yells when he comes within five feet. Quinn is pretty sure she’d be able to hear him from twenty.

Quinn runs toward him and pushes him back out of the coffee shop. They really don’t need to make a scene right now.

“Finn, I—”

“Rachel is really freaked out right now and it’s all your fault! What’s your game this time, huh? Haven’t you messed with her enough?”

“Look, let me—”

“I mean, wasn’t it enough that you tried to steal me back when Rachel and I got together? Why do you always have to shit all over her life?”

“I’m not—”

“You’re not even gay!” he screams, and suddenly Quinn is done being apologetic.

“Will you just let me speak?” she screams.

“No!” he yells back, louder than her and she wishes (once again) that she was better at projecting like Rachel. “This is completely messed up, Quinn. I know you don’t like that we’re together, but she’s my _girlfriend_ , okay? This is not cool.”

Quinn just stands there and lets him rant. She thinks of something to say, anything that would make either of them feel better or that would just calm him down, but all she finds are biting words—the kind that Quinn would have used when she was still actively trying not to be Lucy.

(Now she remembers why it sucked more to be Lucy. When Lucy did terrible things, she always felt bad afterwards. Quinn just yelled at people until they agreed with her.

She realizes that her view of what’s right and wrong is inextricably tied to what makes her feel guilty, only now she even feels guilty for being right.

Quinn was so much easier before Rachel made Lucy want to speak up again).

/

They spend an hour not finding the words to say to each other.

Finn looks like he’s trying to solve a really difficult logic puzzle, and Quinn supposes he is.

_(There are three houses. Each of them is a different color and one of three neighbors—Quinn, Finn, and Rachel—live in them. Finn lives in the green one. The girl in love with another girl lives in the red house. The girl with crippling personal insecurities lives next to the green house. Who lives in the blue house, and who doesn’t get invited to summer barbecues?)_

Quinn doesn’t even know the answer and she’s the one who wrote the damn thing.

/

“Did Kurt tell you?” she finally asks. They sat down a long time ago, still silent, still waiting—he, for her to reveal the punch line, to grin and yell “Gotcha!”; she, for her world to change. This is one of those moments when they’re right together, because they both know neither option is going to happen. You don’t just get lucky with these things. Someone always gets hurt.

“No,” Finn murmurs. “Rachel finally let me go into Kurt’s room. She managed to get it out after, like, fifteen minutes of squeaking. I thought she was kidding at first.”

“Oh.”

Finn sighs and fiddles with the pile of pebbles he’s been accumulating. They make his fingers look abnormally large. “Why'd you have to tell her, huh?” he asks, and his voice is tired in that way that only happens when you start to grow up. Quinn is jealous. “I don't care that you're in love with her—well, I do, but I guess I can’t really change it—but you didn't have to tell her.”

Quinn heaves a sigh of her own, that kind you sigh when you’re twelve and irritated with your parents because they’re actually right. “It doesn't matter, Finn. She's still going to pick you.”

“No, she isn't. You're, like—you're the perfect thing, Quinn. You're popular and really pretty and, I mean, everyone wants to be with that person. If the prettiest girl in school tells you that she loves you, how is anyone supposed to say no?”

“Finn...”

(She understands now, why it was always so easy to direct Finn. Law is reason, free from passion, Aristotle says, and that’s great for the law. People are not reason, free from beauty. Beauty is the reason.

Quinn feels bad that she was Finn’s reason until she realizes that, if she ever asked, she’d say yes to Rachel in a heartbeat.

Quinn is not reason, free from Rachel. When it comes to Rachel, Quinn is reason-free.)

“I'm not...I'm not special like you are, Quinn. But I had Rachel. I had something special. I thought, you know, if I could at least have that special something forever, it would be okay. Like, maybe it wouldn't matter that I was just an average dude because I had someone who loved me anyway.”

“You still have Rachel, Finn. You're saying these things like you've already lost. You’re not going to.”

“I know I don't always share my feelings or whatever, but I still have them.”

It’s a quiet anger, the kind in his voice, one that Quinn would have expected from Kurt or Brittany or Mike. Certainly not from Finn, the boy who kicks chairs and shouts and makes a scene. This is not the Finn she knows. Quinn wonders just how much Rachel has changed him, or if this was in there all the time and Quinn wasn’t enough to pull it out. She wonders how Rachel might change her, what she’d be able to pull out (because it isn’t a question of her being enough. Too much, more like it).

 _Rachel and Lucy_ , she imagines, and it’s like that movie Santana and Brittany made her watch once. The implications make her stomach knead over itself, squirming to get out of her body.

“I know.”

(She doesn’t know, not at all, but what else is she supposed to say?)

“You just—god, Quinn, you just always take my life like it's yours. You were always on me about being popular and stuff. And then I finally get something great and you have to take that, too. I don't know why you do it. But I really don't know why I don't mind that it's you doing it.”

“I'm sorry, Finn.”

And she is. For having bad timing. For being a taker, because Russell took Quinn after Quinn took Lucy, so how else was she supposed to be? They always tell you that taking is bad, that you shouldn’t take things without ever intending to give something back. But they don’t tell you how good it feels to take. How, sometimes, taking is all you can do. Sometimes taking saves lives. Self-preservation is always a selfish act, and with every day that passes, Quinn puts another piece of herself in a jar and pokes air holes.

Besides, she didn’t take anything when she spoke with Rachel. That was giving back what Rachel took from her, and look how well that turned out.

“Yeah,” he grunts. He throws one of his pebbles. It twangs off a car—her car, she realizes, and she can’t tell if he did that on purpose.

“Do you know why I love Rachel, Quinn?”

“Probably for the same reasons I do,” she says before thinking that it might be too much.

“No, I don’t think so,” he sneers. “I love Rachel because she sees the good in everything. She looks for it. I’m a nice guy, but I can’t see everything that she does. So being with her, it’s like sometimes I get it. I understand where she finds these things. Like, Santana’s a bitch most of the time but I know that she’s nice too, sometimes. Because Rachel made me see it. And I know you’re a good person somewhere underneath all that manipulation. But I don’t know why Rachel keeps making excuses for you.” He throws another pebble, and this one was definitely meant to hit her car. “You haven’t changed at all, Quinn. You’re still crapping all over me and Rachel like you were sophomore year and she still won’t leave you alone. And, like—it just fucking _kills_ me because if she left me for you, what would you do to her? Like, what if you took away the good for her? The worst part is that I think she would let you.”

Quinn wipes away tears. She doesn’t know how to say that Finn’s wrong—that’s exactly why she loves Rachel, and the perfect reason she shouldn’t ever be with her. She’s not right for Rachel, she knows that. But neither is Finn. If he gets a chance, why shouldn’t she?

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Finn.”

“What you mean to her and what you think you do—it’s not the same, Quinn. It’s just—none of this is fair.”

( _“Do you not understand what you mean to me?”_ she remembers and it swirls in her head. No, she still doesn’t understand. Finn’s right; she understands what Finn is saying. It’s what she believes, too. So if she doesn’t understand Rachel, what does that mean?

A friend. She’s a friend, and there’s the limit. Rachel is proud to be her friend. They didn’t start out that way, but something changed.

But if something changed, then Finn is wrong.

She still doesn’t understand.

What the hell _does_ Quinn mean to Rachel?)

“Can you just stay away from us? Please?”

Quinn shakes her head before reason gets the better of her and tells her not to. “I can’t,” she whispers.

“God,” Finn scoffs, getting up. He scuffs his pebbles underneath his feet, grinding some into dust. “I feel sorry for you, Quinn. You don’t know anything.”

He’s right, except for one thing.

Quinn knows she loves Rachel.

Sometimes, it feels like that’s the only thing she knows.

* * *

 

It’s times like these when solutions pull you toward them. Choices crop up on your right, your left, in front and behind you, and you have to decide which way to go. Lucy found solutions in books, Quinn in religion.

(There is something that fulfills both of those categories but it isn’t what Quinn wants at all.)

She gets in her car, making sure to kick away the pebbles lying by the back door on the driver’s side. There are a few options Quinn can take: Rachel is somewhere to her right, but that’s completely out of the question. Santana’s house is to the left and if she goes straight out of the parking lot she’ll hit Brittany’s place. (Mrs. Pierce is always good for a talk, even if Brittany’s not at home).

If she goes in reverse she’ll get to her house. Quinn’s home is behind her, and maybe she means that in more ways than one.

So she gets in her car and drives straight out of the lot, veering left almost immediately. Right, right, past the church and two lefts later, she’s sitting in front of a house she hasn’t seen in a year and a half. It’s a nice house—more modest on the outside than what she knows is on the inside. The two Toyotas in the driveway are well below the means of the people who live here, but they’re more about function than flash. (By contrast, Quinn’s parents always had at least one Caddy and always made sure everyone knew it.)

Quinn takes a moment to gather herself before she gets out of the car. She knows that once she knocks on their door, she won’t be able to lie anymore. There will be no trading snark like she would with Santana or Kurt; no smiles to hide under like Brittany would let her. Mercedes’s parents, the Doctors Jones—and the Lucy part of Quinn wishes that Mercedes’s mom was called Martha—are very nice, very unassuming people. But they aren’t ones to suffer any fools. They will not let her leave a question unanswered, a tear or smile unexplained. So Quinn sits and remembers how it feels to wear a Sue Sylvester-patented mask. (Foreign, she decides—it’s ill-fitting but familiar, like her cheekbones have filled out the ridges that used to be custom-sculpted to her face.) But she keeps it on anyway because she’s mostly just here for comfort. She’s done enough talking over the last few days.

Quinn forgets everything the second Mrs. Jones opens the door. By the way her features hover in surprise before forming a smile that uses every muscle in her face, Quinn knows she’ll be doing a lot of talking.

“Well, look who it is!” Mrs. Jones isn’t really anything like Mercedes in appearance, apart from the fact that she’s short. She’s slim with cropped hair and she always wears a watch, even if she’s just lounging around the house.

“Hey, Mama J,” Quinn smiles. The moniker falls easily from her lips, like she’s still staying in their spare bedroom and waddling everywhere. She’d tried, for at least two weeks, to get away with “Mrs. Jones this” and “Mrs. Jones that” because she’d been taught to never address parents by their first names. But eventually, Mercedes’s mom had sat her down on the couch. _“You are bringing a life into this world, honey,”_ she’d said. _“You don’t get to be restricted anymore. You have to open yourself up before you have this baby so that when she comes, you can teach her to do anything.”_

So she’d taken that to heart and settled on “Mama J.” Alice had still seemed like a step too far.

Quinn hadn’t stayed there for very long, but she’d learned a lot from the Jones family.

“Come on in, come on in.” Mama J steps away from the door and Quinn passes by. She feels immediately calmer, and simultaneously guilty for having stayed away so long. “What can I get you to eat, honey? I can warm you up some noodles.”

“No, thank you; I just ate.” It’s a lie, but it’s one that she’s said so often it might as well be true.

Mama J gives her a look and Quinn knows she doesn’t believe it either. “Marcus made some of that steak you used to like so much.”

“Yeah, okay,” Quinn smiles. “I’ll have some steak.”

“Good girl.” She sticks her head in the fridge and rifles around for the right Tupperware. “How are you doin’? You have a good prom?”

“It was…memorable,” Quinn hedges.

“Oh, that’s a euphemism if ever I’ve heard one.”

“Yeah, well, what’s senior prom without a little drama?”

Mama J places a plate of sizzling steak in front of her and Quinn has to fight the urge to drool. “You ran for prom queen, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you win?”

Quinn cuts into her steak and takes a bite. She’s half-tempted to move back in. “No.”

Mama J humphs and sits next to her. “Well, I sure hope that was the drama. I can’t imagine anyone who deserves it more.”

Quinn chews and swallows before answering. “Actually, that was kind of what I wanted to talk to Mercedes about. Is she home?”

Mama J clicks her tongue and swats Quinn lightly on the hand. “She’ll be in her room in ten minutes the same as she is now. Finish your steak and tell me all about your dress.”

She does.

/

She can hear Mercedes’s music from the bottom of the stairs. Quinn recognizes the tune but not enough to sing along, which is fine—she always sounded better humming than singing anyway.

It takes a second before Quinn remembers to go left at the top of the steps instead of right. She isn’t going toward the guest room; she’s looking for Mercedes, and she finds her lying on her bed, idly flipping the pages of a textbook Quinn knows she’s not actually reading.

Mercedes turns towards Quinn’s soft raps on the doorframe. “Hey,” Quinn says quietly.

Mercedes’s smile is sort of sad and Quinn knows she’s been found out. “Hey, girl.”

“Who told?” She isn’t accusing Mercedes of anything. She isn’t accusing anyone, really. Things like this never stay secret forever and Quinn is just tired of not telling. She isn’t afraid of Rachel like Santana was of Brittany (at least for a little bit) and she wasn’t ever planning on making a big speech or anything. So now that people know, the least she can do is be proud of it.

Mercedes shrugs. “I don’t think anyone did on purpose. It just sort of…”

“Happened,” Quinn finishes. “Yeah, that’s what it feels like for me, too.”

Mercedes closes her textbook. “Need to talk?”

“No,” Quinn says, shaking her head. “I need a song.”

“Oh, well I got you on that one,” Mercedes grins, pivoting toward her laptop. Quinn lays down on the floor and smiles as joyful waves of gospel stream out of the speakers.

(It had taken Mercedes at least a week to play gospel music around Quinn. At first Quinn had thought it was because she didn’t want to seem like a stereotype, but when Quinn finally listened to it—like, _really_ listened to it—she’d realized it was very special music, and people don’t share special things lightly).

“When you were still with Shane and Sam was trying to get you back, did you ever feel guilty? I mean, at church.”

“Of course,” Mercedes replies matter-of-factly.

“Why?”

Mercedes turns down the volume on the music and Quinn wishes she wouldn’t because it’s really calming her down. “Because I was supposed to be happy with Shane, and there I was, all googly-eyed over Sam.”

“But that was it?”

Mercedes frowns, obviously puzzled. “Why else would I feel guilty?” Quinn picks at the carpet instead of answering. “Do you feel guilty about loving Rachel?”

Quinn nods and tries to put back the piece of yarn she accidentally yanked out of the carpet. It doesn’t work.

“Quinn, nobody cares that you love Rachel. Well, Finn probably does, and Rachel too—well, I mean, no one cares that she’s a girl. Shoot, look at Brittany and Santana.”

“No,” Quinn chuckles, “I don’t care about that either. And I wouldn’t care even if people cared.”

“So…then what’s the problem?”

This is what Quinn has always liked about Mercedes. She isn’t always loud or in-your-face or obnoxious but she’s got opinions and she doesn’t apologize for them. Mercedes is a woman of quiet conviction, something most people probably don’t notice. Quinn never noticed it until she went to church with her family that very first Sunday.

(It’s a different kind of church than the one Quinn is used to. It’s a little intimidating at first, she’ll admit that.  Everyone is smiling and laughing and Quinn is just waiting for the moment when they notice her giant, sinful, pregnant belly. She’s waiting for the laughs to stop because of her, only they never do. They just smile at her and Mama J grabs her hand and pulls her to her feet so they can dance with the choir. Only the second they start singing, Quinn is back in the pew again. It’s just—it’s a tsunami of sound, really, and Quinn doesn’t know how they’re all still standing. Maybe they’re used to drowning. Quinn just sits and listens and cries through her laughter, and she keeps going back even when her mom lets her come home again.)

“Quinn?”

“I don’t know,” she answers.  “It’s probably dumb.”

“Well, yeah,” Mercedes agrees, “maybe to me. But not to you, so spill.”

“I’m so bad at letting other people love me, Mercedes,” Quinn sniffles. “I crap all over their feelings when I don’t even mean to. But I still love them like they should be careful with my heart, and I can’t ever repay the favor.”

“You’re getting real close to self-pity, and you know how much we hate that in this house.”

“I know,” Quinn mumbles. “But every time I go to church I feel like hiding underneath the pews.”

Mercedes stops the music completely and gives Quinn a look that looks just like her mother’s, and Quinn has to quell a shiver. “Can I tell you something about my God, Quinn?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s my God, too.”

(Neither of them laughs).

“Religion gets a bad rap these days because people use it to fuel their hate, but I think it’s all about love. I don’t need to read the Bible every day to know that God put me here to love everyone. Because that’s the one thing everyone can do, right? So you’re feeling bad that you don’t think you love other people as good as they love you—but there’s only one kind of love, Quinn, and only one thing you can do with it. And there’s no sense in feeling guilty about it.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Girl, come lie down next to me and listen to some music before your head explodes.” Mercedes scoots over and Quinn joins her. She closes her eyes as Mercedes starts up the music again, and the songs aren’t all about saviors and sacrifice. They’re bigger than that.

 _“When you can’t trace his hand,”_ they say, _“trust his heart.”_

It’s a difficult thing to do when she doesn’t always trust her own, but Quinn is going to try.

/

(Here’s what Quinn knows about her heart: most of it belongs with Rachel Berry.

If she’s being honest, she’s always trusted Rachel, so she really should have started trusting herself a lot sooner.)

* * *

 

She ends up calling Rachel even though Finn told her not to and Kurt, who’s being slightly more sensible about this, would probably say the same thing. But all this talking to people, it isn’t going to amount to anything if she never talks to Rachel again. And if she’s got to do it sometime, why not now?

(Quinn tells herself all of this while her thumb repeatedly calls and hangs up seconds later.)

When Rachel finally picks up, Quinn has to tell herself to stop talking in her mind so she can actually start talking with her mouth. It’s surprisingly more difficult than it seems.

“Quinn?”

“Hi, Rachel,” Quinn exhales shakily.

“Quinn, I don’t—”

“I know you probably don’t want to speak with me,” Quinn interrupts. “But we can’t avoid each other forever.” Rachel doesn’t say anything. “I know I made it weird but I’d really like to try and get us to a place where it isn’t weird anymore.”

“Okay.”

“Come have dinner with me,” she practically pleads.

“Quinn…” Rachel warns

“I’m not looking to try anything, Rachel. My mom got too much takeout and no one else is going to eat this veggie rice.”

“Fine.”

Fourteen minutes later, Quinn is warming up the rice in the microwave because she knows exactly how long it takes to get from Rachel’s house to hers. She hears feet scuffle out on her path and she doesn’t even hear the microwave go off because it dings at the same time that Rachel rings the doorbell.

“You brought cookies?” she blurts when she opens the door.

“I bake when I’m stressed,” Rachel explains. “You should see my house. Hope you like oatmeal raisin.”

(Quinn doesn’t tell her that she’s probably the only person in the world whose favorite cookies are oatmeal raisin. Something about how the oatmeal is so dry but the raisins are sometimes really juicy. It’s like eating a conflict.)

“Thanks.” She steps aside and Rachel walks in, stopping right by the door. She doesn’t move a muscle. “You don’t have to be scared of me, you know,” Quinn says.

Rachel finally looks at her and it’s Quinn’s turn to be terrified. The look in Rachel’s eyes, it’s not the fear of freshman year or the pity of sophomore or the competition of junior or the laughter of senior. Rachel is looking at her like, for the first time, she’s unsure of how to gauge her. In the past, Quinn could see the judgment happen—Rachel always knew when to take Quinn at her word and when she was full of shit. Quinn could pinpoint the moment Rachel came to a conclusion. (It was usually before Quinn even started speaking. Somehow, Rachel just knows).

Today, she’s looking at Quinn like she doesn’t know anything at all. Today her eyes are full of questions and Quinn doesn’t even know how to begin answering them.

“I’m not afraid of you, Quinn,” Rachel mumbles. “I just...I need to adjust, that’s all.”

“Well, can you adjust while you eat some Chinese food?”

A smile. Progress.

They eat dinner and barely say a word. Rachel asks where Judy is and Quinn says she doesn’t know, which is only sort of a lie. She’s somewhere at a group therapy meeting for divorcees, but Quinn doesn’t know _exactly_ where. Besides, it’s always easier to feign ignorance. There are some things she doesn’t want to share with even Rachel.

“Can I ask you a question, Quinn?” Rachel finally says.

“Of course.”

Rachel puts down her fork and pushes her plate back, clasping her hands together atop the table as if she’s praying. Quinn’s hands jerk as if to join her.

“Why now? Why would you wait for so long to tell me?"

“Why not now?” Quinn retorts.

“Quinn.”

“No, seriously. Why not now? We’re leaving for college in a few months. Why shouldn’t I say something before we’re too far away from each other?”

“That’s terrible reasoning, Quinn. What if I say no and we go off to college mad at each other? Or worse, what if I say yes and we still have to go off to college? Have you thought about that?”

 _Yes_ , Quinn thinks. _Yes I have, and there are train tickets for that. Please go to New York. You deserve it_.

“Can I ask _you_ something?” she says instead.

“What?” Rachel says, annoyed.

“What’s your favorite musical?”

“ _The Music Man_.”

Quinn takes a sip of water, a bite of eggroll, and smiles before shaking her head. “No, it isn’t. That’s the answer you give someone when you want them to stop talking.”

“I do want you to stop talking. This is a pointless avenue of conversation and you still haven’t answered my question.”

“What’s your favorite musical?”

“ _The Music Man._ ”

“What’s your favorite musical?”

“ _The Music Man!_ ”

“No, it isn’t. What’s your favorite musical?”

Rachel gives her a spectacular glare and Quinn thinks that might be the truest mirror she’s ever looked in. “ _Camelot_ ,” she huffs grumpily.

Quinn stops, temporarily puzzled, and frowns. “Why? They don’t get together in the end.”

“I know.”

Quinn doesn’t say anything. They finish the food left on the table even though neither of them is really hungry anymore.

Somehow, things get less weird and Rachel ends up staying for a long time. They end up watching movies (Quinn has half a mind to put in _Camelot_ , but she’s pretty sure that would send Rachel packing), and Quinn learns a lot. She learns that Rachel has a weird affinity for action movies, which Quinn sort of understands because if you hang around Finn a lot you start to like these things. She learns—when Rachel gets quiet during a scene in _Inception_ and Quinn finally asks why—that Rachel’s always wished she could paint.

(“You’re so good at singing, though,” Quinn says, and Rachel picks at her fingernails before answering.

“But you can’t see a song, Quinn.”)

Quinn reminds herself to get some paints and an easel for Rachel’s next birthday before she realizes that maybe they won’t be speaking by then. It hurts more than she was prepared for.

Rachel stays until just past one in the morning and then she starts falling asleep. Quinn can’t very well send her home, but she doesn’t think Rachel would appreciate staying over, either. So she calls Brittany because she knows where Quinn lives and she’ll put Rachel to bed nicer than Finn would.

And while she waits for Brittany to get there, Rachel rests on her couch and Quinn can’t resist sitting next to her and running her fingers through Rachel’s hair. She barely notices anyway; she’s more than half asleep.

She starts having a conversation with Rachel in her mind, a conversation in which she tells Rachel everything she’s actually too afraid to say. Things she’s wanted to say forever, like “I’m sorry” and “I’m really sorry” and “I think you’re beautiful” and “Do you not know what you mean to _me_?”

She imagines what it would be like to be with Rachel, if she’s even crazy enough at all to throw that idea around. And sure, she’s imagined that life in passing, in fantasy, but seriously? Never. She hasn’t let herself.

“Would you ever say yes to me?” she wonders, and it isn’t until Rachel starts mumbling that she realizes she’s said it out loud.

(She wasn’t expecting an answer either way, but sometimes sleepy ears hear better than alert ones).

“There was this dress I wanted once, really badly,” Rachel starts, her hair muffling most of her words, “and I kept begging my dads for it. They kept saying no but then for my birthday they took me to the store and told me to pick out whichever dress I wanted. And instead of going through the racks I hid in the dressing room.”

“Okay?” Quinn prompts. She hopes that Rachel won’t fall asleep before she can finish explaining.

“Sometimes—up close—dreams are really terrifying.”

Quinn flounders and searches her brain for the right words because the potential in that sentence is astounding, and Quinn likes literature too much to see things for what they really are. She likes to see them for what they could be, but those implications might drive her crazy if she doesn’t pin them down.

“I thought you said you weren’t scared of me.”

“I lied,” Rachel yawns.

“What?” Quinn blurts. It’s as inelegant a sound as she’s ever made and she’s just waiting for Rachel to say something more. But she’s really asleep this time and Brittany is knocking on the door. When Quinn lets her in and Brittany sees her face, she asks what’s wrong. Quinn doesn’t know what _isn’t_ , so she passes Rachel off to Brittany and watches them drive away.

Quinn Fabray doesn’t let herself hope for a lot of things, but she can’t help it tonight. She hopes Rachel sleeps well. She hopes Rachel remembers this conversation tomorrow.

But most of all, she hopes that the things she thinks could be are going to turn into things that _will_ be.


	4. Chapter 4

**(monday)**

Rachel is quiet in Glee.

Quinn watches her the whole time.

Everyone knows but they don’t say a word.

/

(Here’s what she watches:

Rachel’s eyelashes. They’re longer than she ever noticed before, maybe because she wasn’t looking. She imagines what they’d feel like against her cheek, wispy and shy in the dim light of a bedside lamp. She wonders if they would feel like a thin piece of thread or maybe like a bird’s wings, which always seem so fragile. Every time Quinn touches one she thinks she’s going to break it. But that doesn’t stop her from reaching out.

She watches Rachel’s fingers. They’re strong—she knows this because they’ve hugged before and Rachel is a strong hugger. But Quinn has felt them only through cardigans, shirts, jackets. She wants to know what they feel like without all of those things, when Rachel doesn’t have to let go. She wants to know what it feels like to be touched by Rachel Berry.

Rachel’s lips, for once, are still and pursed. They barely sing and Quinn can practically feel the heat from all the glares that Mr. Schue gets when he asks why.

Rachel’s legs tap and twitch. This is the part of liking a girl that Quinn has always seen reflected in Santana and Brittany. It’s not something she would have ever imagined for herself, but she can’t stop. She should feel guiltier— _a lot_ guiltier—for staring so much, but that skirt should also be illegal, so she figures there’s a trade-off.

Rachel won’t look directly at her.

Quinn still thinks she’s beautiful).

* * *

 

**(tuesday)**

They have AP English together. Quinn forgot that they were assigned to work on the same project, so really things can’t get any more awkward. She asks Rachel for a pencil even though she prefers pens, and takes it as a good thing that she gets one without hesitation.

They’re working through _Paradise Lost_ and Quinn wants to spend hours talking this over with Rachel. She wants to know if being Jewish has any effect on whether Rachel believes in a hell, because Quinn is getting to a place where she can discuss religion as a philosophy and not feel like a sinner. She wants to know what Rachel thinks about the piece as a whole because it says a lot about good and bad, about people’s motivations and what really defines your character. That’s what Quinn has always associated with Rachel—conviction of character. She wants to know what Rachel thinks about Satan the literary hero, not Satan the religious figure. Quinn has always found it curious that he becomes a hero the more human he gets. Everything she’s been taught tells her it should be the other way around.

It’s a step too far when she suggests they get together outside of class. In normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be. In normal circumstances, when Rachel asks if she’s planning on inviting their other group member—the boy with cottage cheese hair who won’t stop picking at his ears—Quinn would say no and that would be it. But these aren’t normal circumstances, and Quinn scuffles her feet when she says no. Rachel nods her head knowingly and walks away with a quiet, “See you later.”

/

**(tuesday, lunch)**

“Hey.”

Rachel stops chewing her salad and glances up at Quinn. “Hi.”

Quinn sits down, dropping her bag next to the crappy cafeteria stool. “So, I wanted to say sorry for earlier. I guess it’s still kind of weird, huh?” she laughs feebly.

“A little,” Rachel agrees unenthusiastically.

“Yeah,” Quinn echoes. “So, sorry for that.”

“Thanks,” Rachel nods, frowning. Quinn is pretty sure she intended to smile.

Quinn looks at her for a moment longer. Something doesn’t feel right but she knows if she asks if anything’s wrong, Rachel will automatically say yes. So she doesn’t say anything, just digs into her bag for the chicken salad wrap she bought earlier.

She’s halfway through unwrapping it, plastic crinkling noisily under her too-careful fingers, when Rachel looks up and Quinn just knows.

She gets up and redirects her stupid sandwich to the stupid table that Brittany and Santana share every day. Quinn watches them laugh and she tries not to sulk.

Too bad she’s always been a great sulker.

/

**(tuesday, night)**

(Quinn doesn’t realize until later that evening, when Rachel comes by with the rest of the oatmeal raisin cookies, that ‘ _see you later’_ was actually a promise).

“Do you believe in Hell?” she asks once Rachel’s inside.

“What?”

“Do you believe in Hell?”

Rachel looks at her shrewdly before responding. “Are you having a crisis about your sexuality?”

“No.”

“Did you really invite me over here to work on our project?”

“No.”

“Then,” Rachel says, putting the cookies in the kitchen before plopping onto Quinn’s couch, “I think we should forget your question and watch a movie. What did your mom make for dinner tonight?”

“I made some pesto,” Quinn replies.

Rachel looks away from the channel listings on the television. “Where’s your mom?” she frowns.

“She doesn’t cook much,” Quinn says in lieu of an answer. “How about _Stranger than Fiction_?”

Rachel sighs and changes the channel.

It’s funny; they start talking during the movie about Harold Crick. Whether or not it was free will that governed his life or if he was just written that way. _Are you saying Emma Thompson is God?_ Rachel asks, and just like that they’re full circle. Quinn learns even more.

Rachel is too much of an idealist to believe in Hell, but Quinn can’t tell if she believes in Heaven, either.

Quinn used to believe in Heaven because that’s what her father (and _the_ Father) told her to believe. Now she simply hopes, when she turns her head and finds Rachel squawking on and on about philosophy, that it exists.

(Because that’s what faith is, right? The hope that by believing and trusting in the unknown, the known will suddenly make sense.

Rachel will always remain an unknown and Quinn can’t find any reason to stop believing in her).

* * *

 

**(wednesday)**

She finds Rachel in the library, just like she used to before she messed it all up, only this time she’s not leafing secretly through bridal magazines. (When Quinn came by in those instances, Rachel would always scramble to hide the evidence, as if it were wrong for an engaged woman to be looking at wedding dresses. Quinn knew Rachel was just feeling guilty. She knew because her eyes were exactly like Quinn’s when she looked at them in the mirror).

This time, though, Rachel is leafing through a textbook halfheartedly. As Quinn gets closer, she can see that it’s AP Physics, and she smiles—empiricism and Rachel have never mixed, but there’s a blond Cheerio, five feet away and zeroing in, who happens to be excellent at the subject.

She sits down without invitation because Rachel’s too engrossed and that’s what they’ve always done. Whether they were friends or enemies, whether they were fit to yell at each other or laugh together, they never asked. But judging by the look on Rachel’s face, Quinn thinks that might have been part of the problem.

(This is more than just being uncomfortable around Quinn. Rachel looks affronted, offended that they’re sharing a table. It’s like, for the first time, Quinn really understands that by changing their relationship, she’s actually _changed_ their relationship. It really, really sucks.

She doesn’t get up, though. Quinn Fabray will always stand her ground).

“What do you want?” Rachel glares at her for a little longer and then goes back to her book.

“I, um, I thought maybe you might need some help with physics,” Quinn flounders. “Meier’s class is kind of a bitch, huh?”

“Thank you for the offer, but I’m fine by myself.” Rachel’s tone is brisk, clipped, death warmed up. It’s what Quinn imagines she used to sound like, and it’s disappointing.

“Rachel…”

“Can you please leave me alone, Quinn?”

“What?”

“I came here to study. I'd like to actually be able to do that—alone.”

“I don't…”

“We're not…friendly right now, Quinn. Just because I said some things at your house doesn't mean I've come to terms with this.”

This is the part that hurts. Quinn wants to say that she hasn’t assumed that at all, only she kind of did. You hope enough, you start to expect that things will work out your way. She half wishes her dad was still around to stamp any hopeful urges out of her.

Instead, she shelves the hope for another day and fires back at Rachel with an indignation she has no right to feel.

“You baked me cookies and brought them to my house.”

“I didn't bake them  _for_  you; I baked them  _because of_  you.”

“Why would you give me cookies if we weren't friendly?” Quinn challenges.  “Why would you stay if you didn't want to _be_ friendly?”

“I was trying to apologize, okay? I didn't like how we left things at school and I just wanted to say sorry, to let you know that I'm not mad at you.”

“Funny, it seems like you're pretty mad right now.”

“I'm not mad at you, I'm mad that I let you drag me into these things. I don't know why I can't just…”

Quinn raises her eyebrows and waits for Rachel to continue. It’s right there, the root of all their problems, and she wonders if it’s anything she’s actually caused. She wonders if this part is her fault, or if the words Rachel is trying to find are really the ones that would fix everything. She wonders if either of them will have the courage to point them out, find them in a book and tap tangible, indelible resolutions with a confident finger. _There they are,_ Quinn thinks, _and there we aren’t_.

Rachel doesn’t say what Quinn wants her to.

“ _Please_ , just go, Quinn,” she finally sighs. “Please.”

For the second time in as many days, Quinn gets up and trails out the door, tail between her legs, head bowed, back hunched, and this isn’t anything that sneaky Milky Ways and her sad playlist can fix. This just is.

(Quinn runs through her extensive knowledge of narratives and clichés and comes to the conclusion that this is the reconciliation part of the story, where Rachel catches her and confesses everything she’s feeling before Quinn turns down another hallway.

She makes it to her next class without interruption.)

/

**(wednesday, night)**

Quinn finishes the cookies.

She waits for more, but they never come.

* * *

 

**(thursday)**

It started, as many arguments with Rachel Berry do, with Celine Dion.

(Actually, it started with prom, but the rest of the glee club—for once—has enough tact not to say anything. Except for Mr. Schue, who doesn’t know a thing and looks like he wants to ask. But he won’t. He’s like an ostrich when it comes to confrontation.)

Anyway, it starts with Celine Dion because Rachel is freaking out about Nationals. And it’s not like Quinn would expect any less, but it’s still really irritating. She loves Rachel more than a lot of things but every bone in her body wants to walk out of this room and bury her face in some Nietzsche or something. She’d take the extremism of _“God is dead”_ over the drama of _“We cannot afford to lose this time, and as the strongest female voice, I think it is incumbent upon me to prepare a show-stopping ballad. I’ve compiled a list of Celine Dion selections for you all to look over.”_

But she can’t leave because she cares about Nationals, too. It’s because she cares so much that she objects with a loud guffaw to Rachel’s checklist (and the purple clipboard to which it’s affixed).

“Do you have something say, Quinn?” Rachel’s voice is an icicle, slicing through the room with fatal swiftness. It’s a good thing Quinn is quickly working her way to an anger that would melt anything in the tri-state area.

“Yeah, I do. I thought we were over New Directions being The Rachel Berry Show. We’re better when we work together.”

“We don’t win when we work together; do you even remember the Journey fiasco?”

“We won Regionals this year.”

“That was _Ohio_ , Quinn. If we don’t win Ohio, we should be institutionalized. Nationals is different.”

“I don’t know; Chicago is just as much the Midwest as Ohio is.” Quinn can’t help but be sarcastic and it’s a small pleasure that she gets a couple of snickers. Probably from Puck and Mike.

It’s like Rachel is trying to crush Quinn under the force of her iceberg-eyes. “Even so, we have to sing a ballad. It’s standard for all show choir competitions.”

“Are those actually the real rules?” Brittany chimes in. Santana shushes her.

Rachel clearly thinks the ensuing lull means that she’s won, and she hands Brad a pile of sheet music. There’s a voice in Quinn’s head saying “Look how beautiful she is when she talks about music.” But there’s also a louder one screaming “ _Fuck. This_.” In the heat of the moment, she sides with that one.

“Why are you acting like this, Rachel?”

“Like what?” Rachel bites, spinning around.

“Like the selfish, entitled sophomore you used to be.”

“You’re calling _me_ entitled?”

(Rachel’s talent for projecting is clearly applicable in situations other than singing. Quinn is pretty sure she’s her own loudspeaker system).

“Yeah, I am!” Quinn matches her volume, mad because Rachel’s being difficult and they still haven’t fixed their relationship. “You’re better than this, okay? You can want to win without being an insufferable diva. You’ve proven that already this year.”

“Yeah, well, sorry if I don’t exactly feel like embracing change right now.”

“You’ve already embraced it; god, stop being so difficult, will you?”

“I’m being difficult? No, Quinn, this is not difficult. Giving me a Celine solo is an easy thing. _Difficult_ ”—and her voice lowers to a dangerous pitch that has even Santana looking wary—“is when your friend comes up to you the day after prom and tells you she’s in love with you, and won’t you please leave your boyfriend for me?”

“I never asked you to leave Finn,” Quinn bristles.

“But you implied it, otherwise why would you tell me? You don’t share these kinds of things without a purpose.”

“I didn’t have an agenda, Rachel. I told you I loved you because I love you.”

“ _Why?_ ” Rachel screams, her voice ragged. “Why do you love me, Quinn? I’ve been thinking about this ever since Saturday and I just can’t make sense of it. I can pick apart any love song in the world and relate it to my life but I can’t find one that explains you. I need this Celine number because I just don’t _understand_.”

(Quinn has never really understood the expression “so quiet you could hear a pin drop” because nobody carries around pins, and consequently nobody has any to drop. So she can’t judge the ensuing silence with those measurements.

In the wake of Rachel’s words, the room sounds like a scream in reverse. Like someone has opened a gaping, noise-specific black hole and they’re just inhaling for all they’re worth. It feels like sound never even existed at all).

“Uh, ladies, I think you might want to take this discussion into the hallway.” Mr. Schue finally intervenes, quailing under the glares Rachel and Quinn both direct his way.

“Fine,” Quinn agrees.

“No.”

“Rachel…”

“I’ve said all I needed to, Quinn,” Rachel answers, wiping her eyes. “If you’ll excuse me, there are some of us who haven’t forgotten about the impending competition.”

She brushes past Quinn and sits defiantly in her seat, but she’s back up not a second later, being dragged toward the door under Santana’s powerful grip.

Santana flings her out the doorway before marching back into the room and grabbing Quinn with just as much grace. Quinn and Rachel stand next to each other, stalemate temporarily forgotten because now they have a mutual bother.

(Rachel is staring daggers at Santana. Quinn is trying not to let either of them see how grateful she really is.)

“Santana, I’m not—”

“No,” Santana interrupts. “You don’t get to speak, Berry. Neither of you do.” She crosses her arms, eyes filled with resolution, and no one has ever worn the Cheerios uniform better. “This is how it’s going to go down: Rachel is going to have her solo. She’s right; judges inexplicably like that obnoxiously loud voice of hers. We will also be doing two _group numbers_ in which the solos will be evenly distributed. The rest of us will come up with a few options. Meanwhile, the two of you are going to go to the auditorium and _work your shit out_. I’ll drag you both there if I have to.”

“Santana—”

“Berry, so help me god, if you don’t do exactly what I said I will find a way to make sure you’re banned from Nationals completely. I’m sure there’s at least one judge you could pretend to sleep with.”

“Fine,” Rachel grumbles.

Santana doesn’t go back in the room until Quinn and Rachel start to walk away. The last thing Quinn sees before she realizes they’re actually alone is Santana’s satisfied smirk.

“Why do I feel like we just got in trouble with the principal?” she grumbles.

Rachel actually laughs, seemingly in spite of herself. “Right?”

Quinn stops and waits until she’s sure Rachel is looking at her. “I’m not sorry we did, though,” she says seriously.

Rachel sobers just as quickly. “Not yet, Quinn. We have to go to the auditorium.”

Quinn rolls her eyes and purses her lips. “We don’t _have_ to do anything but talk, Rachel. That was just Santana being Santana. You don’t actually have to listen to her.”

“I’m not. I want to be in the auditorium. You can stay here and talk all you like, but you’ll be talking to yourself.”

Quinn has to fight the urge to smile as Rachel storms off.

(She loses and follows her anyway).

It’s quiet and only half-lit in the auditorium because sometimes the theater kids use the stage as a study hall. Quinn gets it; if she could, she’d stay in the choir room all day. It’s a safe place.

She watches Rachel and thinks that maybe the auditorium is Rachel’s safe place. She’s still as quiet and distant as she has been all week, but in a calmer way. Her eyes come to rest on things instead of nervously flitting over them. Her back straightens out and relaxes, finally released from the awkward slump it’s recently affected. Quinn is pretty sure she could find a million ways in which Rachel transforms, and she wouldn’t ever get tired of counting.

“Are you going to talk?” Rachel asks quietly.

Quinn sits in the fourth row and props her feet up on the chairs in front of her. Rachel leans against the stage. There are so many things Quinn wants to say that she can’t decide on any of them.

“What do you want to talk about?” The look Rachel gives her is positively murderous. “No, I meant, like, what specifically. I’m not an idiot.”

“Can you answer my question?”

“I thought I had when I started talking,” Quinn jokes.

Rachel is undeterred. “Why do you love me?” she repeats, only this time she isn’t yelling. This time Quinn has to strain to hear her.

“I told you why at the coffee shop.” Rachel shakes her head quickly, eyes trained downward. “You want an explanation?”

“Please,” Rachel whispers, nodding.

“Okay.” Quinn cranes her neck, thinking. “I love you because you have plans. Because you still dream like a little kid. I love you because you’re smart and beautiful. I love you because you still hide in corners when you’re nervous. I love you because every time you sing it’s like I’m learning what feelings are for the first time. I love you because I’ve watched you for four years, even when I didn’t like you, and I still don’t understand you. I love you because I don’t think I ever will.”

Rachel frowns and starts crying in earnest, and it breaks Quinn’s heart. “I’m pretty sure those are supposed to be happy tears,” she says, trying to break the tension.

Rachel wipes at her eyes. “I still don’t—those are reasons to love _anyone_ , Quinn.”

“Right,” Quinn agrees. “So…it makes sense that I love you.”

“No, it doesn’t!” Rachel sniffles adamantly. “You could say that about Finn or Sam or—or Santana or anyone. It still doesn’t explain why you love _me_.”

“Yes, it does,” Quinn replies, frowning herself. “No one else is like you. I can’t describe anyone else in the world the way I just described you. There is only one Rachel Berry, and I love her, and you’re it.”

“I still don’t get it,” Rachel says sadly. “I get why Finn and I work, okay? He needs someone to help him find direction and I need someone who will fully support me. That’s easy. I understand that.”

“Rachel…” Quinn gets up from her chair and sits next to Rachel, who has slumped against the side of the stage, legs splayed in front of her. She takes Rachel’s hands in hers. “You have to understand that I’m saying this without any malicious intent or underhanded sneakiness.”

“Okay,” Rachel nods, smiling a little.

“Okay. You think that you and Finn work, Rachel. But you’re wrong.”

“What?”

“Look, I’m not saying this because I want to steal you from Finn. I’m just saying, you pined after him sophomore year like he was a prize and he did the same to you, okay? You just kept winning each other and then when you actually got together and there wasn’t any more chasing to do, you broke up. And then he won you back or you won him back or I don’t even know what happened. But the point is that relationships aren’t supposed to be easy. They aren’t supposed to be cut-and-dry. You don’t always _need_ to explain them because sometimes you can’t.”

“No, relationships are supposed to be stable and comforting, and—”

“Rachel, you’re eighteen. Go for settled when you hit twenty seven.”

Rachel looks completely deflated. “But, I—”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you agree to marry Finn?”

Rachel purses her lips and takes a deep breath. “Because we love each other. Because Finn is sturdy and I know he’ll always do his best to make me happy. Because he’s—”

“Safe?” Quinn suggests.

“He’s more than that,” Rachel fires back quickly.

“He’s a compromise, Rachel. A nice, goofy, well-intentioned compromise.” Rachel doesn’t say anything and it bothers Quinn that she’s barely gotten a reaction. Sure, Rachel hasn’t fallen into her arms or given her the slightest glimmer of hope, but she also hasn’t told her, in what would be a blunt and mostly-polite-but-also-slightly-arrogant speech, to give up. Quinn is sure that Rachel should have had some reaction by now. Something is wrong.

“There’s something you’re not saying,” Quinn ventures. “What don’t you understand about all of this?”

Rachel laughs softly to herself, clearing her throat. “You know, back when we were enemies, I still wanted to be you a little bit. I would go home and write in my journal or sing or rant to my dads, but at night, when I was thinking about how much better my life was going to be when I got out of high school, I imagined I would be kind of like you. I would make all these plans for what I would do when I got pretty like Quinn, or when I got recognized like Quinn.”

“And now?”

“And now—and now I know you and you’re my friend and I don’t want to be you anymore. But sometimes I still make those plans and I forget to put Finn in them. It’s “When I’m in New York with Quinn” or “When I go visit Quinn at Yale” and then I feel bad and I fall asleep and try to forget it ever happened. Somewhere along the way, wanting to be you turned into wanting to be around you, or with you, or whichever because I can’t really tell the difference anymore. And I just don’t understand _why_.”

Quinn is surprised there aren’t guitars playing in the background or a piano. She’s half waiting for Rachel to start singing because her heart has been replaced by a set of very large, very loud drums.

“Can I try something?” she asks quietly.

Rachel’s replay is hesitant. “Okay…”

It’s Quinn’s turn to take a deep breath and she hopes that her voice won’t come out as shaky as it feels. “Can I kiss you?”

(That twinkle in Rachel’s eyes, it kind of looks like relief. Like how happy you get when something really terrifying is over, only then someone comes up to you and tells you that something even scarier is about to happen. It’s that horror movie-thrill, the acceptance that if you’re going to die, at least it will have been exciting.

Quinn is pretty sure her eyes twinkle the exact same way when Rachel says yes).

She lets go of Rachel’s hands because suddenly hers are too sweaty and nervous, so she rests them on the floor. She fiddles with her hair, pulls at her shirt, and the longer she stalls, the bigger Rachel smiles.

“Just kiss me already, Quinn,” she finally says.

Quinn makes sure Rachel sees her roll her eyes before she shuts them tight and leans in. Because she wants to watch Rachel’s face, like, really bad, but not if it’s going to be disappointed. If this is the part where Rachel rejects her, at least Quinn will have the ignorance of one perfect kiss.

(It’s not a word she throws around lightly, ‘perfect.’ Perfect used to be _her_ word. Perfect used to be Quinn Fabray, head cheerleader with the quarterback boyfriend. Perfect used to be reading the Bible and loving her parents. But Quinn is learning a lot about perfect today.

Perfect tastes like tear-stained candy, like those caramel bites with the perfect amount of salt that Quinn can just completely lose herself in. Perfect feels like notebook paper when it’s soft and crumpled after having been stuffed at the bottom of your bag for months. Perfect falls through her fingers when she tangles a hand in Rachel’s hair—perfect is as thin as fishing wire but as feathery as baby duck fuzz.

It’s like Quinn is opening a dictionary and reading the truth for the first time).

She keeps her eyes closed as they pull away until she’s sure Rachel isn’t touching her anymore.

When she finally opens them, Rachel looks like somebody just slapped her in the face. Or worse—slapped Barbra Streisand in the face. She’s looking past Quinn more than she’s looking at her. Silent and wide-eyed, Rachel’s mouth is frozen in an expression somewhere between a gasp and a huff. Like she doesn’t know if she should be impressed or offended.

“Say something?” Quinn prompts.

“I kissed Finn while you two were still dating in sophomore year,” Rachel blurts, still not meeting Quinn’s gaze. “On this stage, actually. He leaned over and he kissed me and it felt like an answer, and if I kissed him long enough I might eventually figure out the question. It felt like there was a piece of me that was growing and fitting in all at the same time.”

“Okay.”

“This felt a lot like that.” Rachel’s smile is shaky but genuine, her lips quivering at the corners. “Only it was so much better.”

* * *

 

**(friday)**

Rachel laughs in Glee.

Quinn watches her the whole time.

Nobody knows so they can’t say a word.

/

(Here’s what she watches:

Rachel Berry.

Rachel Berry, the girl she kissed.

Rachel Berry, the girl she kissed, smile back.)


End file.
